Never Can Say Goodbye
by evieeden
Summary: Pepper sometimes thinks about walking away from all of Tony's drama. Advent fic for 14th December.


**Happy 14** **th** **December. This is a Tony/Pepper fic so I hope you like it. Thanks so much for reading and as always, I own nothing to do with Marvel.**

 **N: Never Can Say Goodbye – Gloria Gaynor**

 **Never Can Say Goodbye**

He was driving her insane. She was two seconds away from throwing her tablet at his head…possibly her handbag too.

She had a board meeting, three investors to soothe and an entire HR department to re-staff and supervise whilst they weeded out any bad eggs following Hydra's reveal by Steve. She did not have time for this.

Glaring at Tony, she watched as his sheepish grin melted away and was replaced by his best little-boy-lost look of contrition.

She opened her mouth to speak. He beat her to it.

"Before you say anything, I just wanted to let you know that we would never risk the structural composition of the tower with anything we do and that technically it's Bruce's fault anyway."

Pepper arched an eyebrow and turned to face the exhausted, half-naked scientist lurking in the background of the lab, ignoring the fact that half the windows on the floor had been blown out of their frames by the latest explosion.

He shrugged. "Sorry about the ceiling."

She raised a hand and rubbed it tiredly against the bridge of her nose, where she could feel a headache forming.

She had already woken up feeling terrible that morning – the lingering remnants of the Extremis in her blood meant that some days she woke up feeling like she had been beaten up in the night, her muscles sore and aching – and this was the last straw on a terrible day.

First, had been a disastrous meeting with an energy provider whose CEO Tony had managed to insult three days earlier by implying that he didn't know how to do his job. Then had been her assistant nearly collapsing from the flu – she had sent poor David home after he nearly vomited in the hallway. And finally there was Tony.

Well, Tony and Bruce it seemed, who had decided to begin their morning by testing the heat resistance capabilities of one of the Iron Man suits. As it turned out, if you cooked the suit for long enough, the electronics inside would create an instant blast.

The entire lab was covered in chunks of smouldering metal and plastic, half the equipment Tony had was melted and the only reason he himself had not been injured by the burning, flying debris was because Bruce had shielded his body, hulking out to protect himself from his own injuries.

Hence, why there was now a hole in the ceiling too.

Shaking her head, Pepper glanced around the rest of the floor, thankfully separated from the blast by protective glass. Some of the younger scientists looked a little shell-shocked from the damage that their boss had caused, wandering around blindly, while over on the far side of the lab, she could see Jane Foster pottering around, papers in hand, completely oblivious to anything going on outside her own lab. Her assistant, Darcy, was watching though – coffee and phone in hand – and smiled brilliantly when she saw Pepper notice her, waving enthusiastically.

She was surrounded by mad people. It was the only explanation.

Pepper turned back to Tony, only to find that while she had been taking in the damage, he had been ordering the bots to clean the lab and was now tinkering with a metal gauntlet that had somehow survived the blast intact.

"…I'm just saying, that if we increase the silicone protecting the cables, then…"

She cleared her throat loudly and he turned away from Bruce guiltily.

"No more," she ordered.

His face fell. "But, Pep…"

"No more," she repeated. "I… just… Get out of the shop, let the contractors in to fix the damage, just… no more."

Tony took a step towards her, his arm reaching out, but she ignored it and stalked back towards the elevator, ignoring his calls to her.

She got safely behind the door to her office before the shaking started. At first it was just a fine trembling that raced over her hands, but it quickly became violent waves that raced over her body as she sobbed, crouched behind her desk so no one could see her. She could feel the boiling begin in her blood as the Extremis came to the fore.

He was so thoughtless. _So_ thoughtless.

And the worst part was that she knew he didn't mean anything by it.

Tony's greatest strength was also his greatest weakness. He knew the damage years of producing weapons had caused and he was determined to fix it by making the world a better place. She admired him for it, even though it did make her life rather difficult at times, especially when clients brought up the company's past or expected them to have only stopped manufacturing in the public eye while secretly doing under-the-table deals.

The trouble was that he threw himself into his task wholeheartedly, regardless of personal consequence. He didn't care about his own safety and thought nothing of throwing himself into a fight if he thought it was the right thing to do, no matter how big or bad his opponent was, and without thinking about what would happen if he got seriously hurt, if he died…

What would Pepper do if he died?

If he did something stupid on the battlefield or when training with the Avengers or God, even when he was just messing around in his lab with the suits just like he was today.

Thank God he had Bruce with him.

She was just waiting for that moment. She knew what would happen. There would be a phone call…no, a visit from Fury maybe. Not Fury – he admired Tony and vice versa, but it wouldn't be him – but Steve or Natasha or Bruce, someone on his team, but known to her. And responsible. Definitely Steve. And when that happened, her world would end and everything would fall apart.

Things always fell apart when Tony wasn't there.

Afghanistan, New York, Malibu…

She was so tired of almost losing him. It was almost enough to make her cut and run before she could get hurt again.

"Pep –" his voice rang out down the hall.

Except if she left then she wouldn't get to see him anymore. She wouldn't get to share her home with him or laugh with or watch him blush adorably every time he showed someone else, her included, that he cared before pretending he knew nothing about it.

"Pepper!"

She would miss him.

He was her best friend, partner in arms and her rock, and God help her, but she thought he might be the love of her life.

So she wouldn't leave. She would stay. She had to.

"Pepper?"

His voice came from the other side of her desk and seconds later, his head appeared around the side. He took in her crouched position in one look and then knelt down beside her, gathering her up in his arms.

"Oh, Pepper. I'm sorry."

She clung to the dirty collar of his t-shirt and he rocked her from side to side, soothing her.

"I promise I'll be more careful in the future. We didn't mean to blow up the lab. I'll be more careful."

Uncurling, she scrambled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"You have to promise me to be careful," she mumbled into his should. "You need to be more careful."

"I promise," he vowed, kissing her neck, her cheek, her nose. "I promise I'll be careful. I won't leave you."

"Good," she declared, hugging him tighter. "I won't leave either. I couldn't."

He didn't say anything, but his arms squeezed her closer just a little bit more.


End file.
